Evaluating the effectiveness of CPR for in-hospital cardiac arrest

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is one of the most commonly performed medical interventions. However, the true effectiveness of CPR remains unknown as it presents significant challenges for evaluation and research. Many resuscitation practices are driven by nonquantitative reasoning and may not be evidence based. Several studies have been published on survival after in-hospital CPR. However, the reported survival rates from one hospital to another vary significantly due to a number of reasons such as type of hospital, presence of specialized cardiac units, patient demographics, differences in inclusion criteria, outcome definitions and so on. Further research is indicated to evaluate the true effectiveness of CPR for in-hospital cardiac arrest.